Practice Body
by Polychromatic Idiosyncrasies
Summary: To better herself as a ninja, Ino seeks advice and a "practice body" for her to perfect transferring her mind and possessing a male body. When she offers to trade tips on womanly wiles, Naruto can't say no... or stop grinning pervertedly. NaruIno.
1. Chapter 1

_**Disclaimer:**__ I do not own Naruto. You're shocked, I know._

_**Warnings:**__ Death, violence, normal ninja things. Mentions of sex and generally naughty doings. The tendency to flop between dark and light-hearted._

_**Notes**__: This chapter is just an introduction, but I think it can stand on its own pretty well. :) I wanted to go ahead and post it for the sake of feedback. (In other words, is this working?)_

* * *

Ino hates her job sometimes.

She's in the underbelly of the ninja world. Really, she is. She remembers being a genin and getting normal missions. Punch, kick, throw kunai. Rescue cat from tree. Rescue kidnapped child. Retrieve stolen goods. At the time, it was what they were best at. What she was best at.

But times change and kids grow up. She's improved at her clan's techniques now. She can still throw a decent punch and her marksmanship has vastly improved. But it's not what she's best at anymore.

Espionage. Sabotage. Infiltration. All those words had sounded pretty neat at first, and she likes throwing them at her friends' faces when they talk about work. But really it's just the dirty jobs of the shinobi. Sometimes she loves it, they way she loves running barefoot through mud puddles after it rains. But sometimes she just feels dirty and ugly, and she hates it.

And she never feels as dirty as she does lying under an old, greedy man. Luckily nothing is really expected from noble women: lie there, let him do what he wants, make squeaking noises when appropriate. Try to think about something else. It's not her body, anyway.

Ino wonders how her own body is doing as the nobleman thrusts above her. Shikamaru and Choji have probably gotten back to Konoha by now, and she's probably hooked up to some machine in the hospital to keep her body alive. Shikamaru is either staring at clouds or being briefed on some new, strategy-heavy mission, depending on how ambitious his family is making him be. Choji is probably eating.

That or they're drawing on her face again. She mentally plots revenge and moans loudly as the sweaty man comes, squeezing the eyes that aren't hers closed. He rolls off of her.

"M-mochizuki-sama," she stammers in this body's shrill voice. It's high and not quite cute, but she guesses the pretty face and glossy black hair make up for it. This girl's father practically sold her to Mochizuki to bail himself out of debt. He hadn't even bothered hiring extra protection for her caravan. Quietly taking over her body in the night had been a cinch– Shikamaru and Choji hadn't even really been necessary. Aside from body transport.

They better not have dropped her or anything.

Mochizuki pulls a robe on and stomps out of the room without a word or even a glance back at her. Ino sits up slowly and examines the naked form of the girl she is possessing. Pale. Petite. No noteworthy muscle mass. Bruising where the man had grabbed her.

Her name is Shizuka. Ino is pretty sure she had been a virgin. She almost felt guilty, but it's not like Shizuka could have refused that anyway.

Ino hadn't been particularly surprised when Mochizuki had taken her before the marriage proper (which Ino had no intention of sticking around for; there was no way she could hold the technique for that long). But he had waited a week, and he hadn't responded to any of her attempts to come on to him. Even more disturbing, according to the head maid who is in charge of taking care of her, his advisors had _told_ him to do it.

And she still has next to no information on his illegal weapons trade.

She had done this before. Usually it was easy to get information out of men who thought of her merely as something to stick themselves in. Not because they bothered to tell her anything, of course, but because they liked to flaunt her in front of their friends and business partners and didn't count her smart enough to pick up on what the men's conversations were about.

But Mochizuki had just left her in a room and had barely said more than a few sentences to her since she'd arrived.

Ino considers different methods to get the information she needs as she bathes herself. She had asked some innocent questions to the servants she'd met, but none of them seemed to even know about the legal ways Mochizuki was obtaining money. He just didn't talk much in general and conducted most of his business away from the house. She had scraped together a few leads, but…

Hana, the head maid, enters the room as Ino is dressing. Shizuka had brought several very fine kimono with her; her father hadn't been selfish with the irresponsible way he spent his money. Ino is carefully arranging a cream colored one, decorated with detailed black cranes and the red autumn leaves of some fictional tree. It was the one Shizuka had been wearing when Ino took her over and was a bizarre choice for such a young girl, like she was trying to seem mature for her new husband. Or maybe the black birds were a sign of morning. Hana wordlessly shuffles over and helps her with eggplant-purple obi.

"Why doesn't Mochizuki-sama talk to me?" Ino murmurs quietly, ashamedly, abashedly. She stares down at Shizuka's tiny white toes. The second is longer than the first on one foot, but not the other. This explains the initial and brief strangeness Ino had felt trying to balance herself. Ino remembers her father.

_All movement is, in essence, natural to the body, through physiology or through habit. If a person walks duck-footed because that's how their feet are shaped, it will come naturally. If a person cracks their knuckles when they are nervous, it will come naturally. It's easy to override this with your mind and make a body do whatever you will._

_Learn not to._

Hana fiddles behind her with the obi. "He doesn't talk to anyone," she answers gruffly.

"But I'm his fiancée!" Ino protests, turning her face toward Hana. Hana snorts.

"You? You're just a showpiece. You're just a wife to pop out heirs." Hana turns to the unmade bed, freshly used. She begins to strip the sheets from it. Ino tries very hard to force tears into her eyes.

"B– b– but…" Ino thinks very sad thoughts. Kicked puppies, kitties with their eyes being ripped out by crows. She does her best to look devastated. "I just don't want to disappoint my father."

She thinks of Asuma-sensei, and how she could do nothing to save him. Her eyes brim with tears. She makes a mental note to find something better to think of to make her cry; Asuma-sensei's death is still uncomfortably painful.

Hana sighs and drops the sheets. "Look, sweetie…" Hana was always rough and gruff until the tears started to flow. She patted Ino on Shizuka's narrow shoulder. "It's not your fault. It's your father's. The idiot just wants a dowry from Mochizuki."

Tears run down Shizuka's cheeks.

"But," Ino sputters, "he won't even talk to me! What am I doing wrong? Am I–"

Hana cuts her off. "Don't you think that's your fault either!" she commands. "Mochizuki's a tight-lipped bastard. He doesn't even like women."

"What?" Ino wipes a tear from her face. "What do you mean?" she asks, hoping she's misunderstanding. Hana sighs.

"Met me in the kitchen after dinner. You'll see."

-

Ino is not sure she's allowed to roam around the house without a servant in tow, so she does was she approximates as Shizuka's best ability to be stealthy. She battles all her shinobi instincts in making her footsteps audible as she sneaks down the hall.

She reaches the kitchen without incident. It's a modern one, with a large stove and a sink with hot water and an oversized refrigerator. It is spacious too, with a table set in the corner for servants. Hana is sitting at it playing cards with a male who Ino thinks is named Hoji.

"Oy," Hana calls over at her and waves. Ino wanders shyly over.

"Shizuka-chan's here to see the master's new boy-toy," Hana informs the man. He laughs. Inwardly, Ino groans.

"What do you mean?" she asks innocently. Hana and Hoji exchange glances, smirking. Ino is vaguely reminded of the looks Naruto and Kiba had exchanged before they'd abandoned her and Sakura at Ichiraku with their sizeable bill. Luckily the shop owner had witnessed a few of Sakura's rage-fueled, chair-smashing, wall-pulverizing fits before. Naturally terrified of property damage, he hastily offered to add it all to Naruto's tab.

Ino reminiscences in their subsequent revenge on Kiba (which had involved weaving poison ivy into a bouquet from a 'secret admirer') as they wait for… whatever they are waiting for. She also notes Hoji is a horrible cheat at gin rummy.

Finally there is the sound of wheels and the braying of a mule or donkey outside. Hana and Hoji perk up.

"He's here," Hana informs her, and drags her to a small window at the back of the kitchen. There is a stool under it, as it is above even Hoji's head. Ino holds Hana's hand as she climbs onto it and peers out. With Shizuka's slight form, she has to stand on tiptoe.

There was a boy outside, probably around her own age. Ino's, that is; Shizuka, barely a legal adult, is a couple years younger. He is unloading wood from a mule-drawn cart. His skin is bronze and smooth over well-defined muscle. Probably from years of chopping wood, Ino thinks. But his face is nice too: a strong jaw, a straight nose, and mischievous brown eyes under unkempt black hair. Mochizuki exits into the dwindling light from a door that must be through the stockrooms next to the kitchen. The boy grins at him, and his face lights up in a most attractive way.

Mochizuki crosses to him and, to Ino's shock, the taciturn man strikes up a conversation. She can't hear them, but she can read their lips. The boy cracks a bad joke, and Mochizuki actually laughs. They talk about pointless things for a while as the boy continues unloading the wood, piling it against the wall by the door, too far away for him to see Ino watching. Mochizuki watches him closely with a certain amount of lust in his eyes.

Then the boy asks about the 'deal in Wave.' Ino almost gasps. Mochizuki talks to _him_ about his job?

Mochizuki chuckles, and replies something about how his business partner had liked the new pens so much he had placed another order.

_Pens?_

"So will you being going back to Wave country?" the boy asks. Mochizuki shrugs.

"Perhaps. This particular man has also done trades in Earth in the past as well. We have yet to finalize arrangements."

The boy says nothing to that, and finishes piling the wood neatly against the house's wall. Then Mochizuki says, "I brought you back something from Wave as part of your payment. Come inside and see."

The boy grins and follows him into the house. Now that Ino knows to look for it, she hears the quiet sound of a door open and close one room over. She cannot make out the murmured conversation the two men continue.

Hana helps her down from the stool, smirking again. Ino frowns.

"I don't understand. What does that mean?"

Hoji snorts. "It means Mochizuki likes to take it up the butt."

Ino resists the urge to roll her eyes. "What does that mean?" She asks instead.

Hoji groans and mutters something that sounds like "impossible twit." Hana rubs her back.

"It means Mochizuki likes men more than he likes women."

Ino widens Shizuka's eyes. "Oh." She says. They are silent for a few moments. "Who was that?"

Hana chuckles. "His name is Mokuno Ichiro. He sells firewood to the surrounding towns. Mochizuki has us burn far more wood than necessary just to get him up here about once a week." She gives Ino a meaningful look. "Sorry, kid, but he's more into _that_ than you. You're here for your uterus."

Ino mentally tsks. She should have taken over this Mokuno Ichiro, not Nishimoto Shizuka. Ichiro is the only one with information.

Hana escorts her back to her room, and Ino sits on the bed silently and contemplates her next plan of action. She's fairly certain Mochizuki has no intention of talking to her or anyone else about his work. She has managed to learn from Hana what countries he frequents for "business," but he hires men for transportation and no one has an exact location. She wonders if Ichiro has ever bothered to ask.

I could switch to him, she thinks. But that would require too much energy; she's already running low. She doesn't even have a week left. It doesn't take much to stay in another body, although greater distance between the possessed body and her real body makes it harder. For a long term mission, the rest of her team would keep it nearer to her mind's location, but Ino knew how annoying babysitting was for Shikamaru and Choji and had been confident she could get enough relevant information in two weeks to interrupt the weapon trade. (Besides, the one time they _had_ tried that she'd woken up with weird things drawn all over her face and temporary green dye in her hair.)

_Ino, you're too cocky,_ she remembers her father telling her. Thanks, Dad, she mentally replies.

Even if she could possess Ichiro, she has no idea how he acts. Unlike Shizuka, Ichiro is known well enough that deviations in normal behavior would be noticed. She'd have to observe him closely before hand, or magically master a few family mind-reading techniques over night.

She wonders if she could arrange to talk with Ichiro. If she had more time, she is certain she could arrange a few chance meetings and innocent questions, and she could definitely spy on their conversations. But she doesn't have more time.

She stays up well into the night thinking it over, lying on the bed with the new sheets Hana laid out and glaring at the ceiling. When she has no solution at 2:00 AM, she sits up, walks over to the as yet unused desk, and pens a suicide note.

-

Along with little muscle mass, undeveloped chakra systems are one of the annoyances of possessing a civilian. It takes a good amount of concentration for Ino to walk out over the river. It is about half a mile from the Mochizuki household.

There is a bridge over her head. The water rushes under her feet and it is hard to stay balanced. The river rages, and a small civilian female has no chance against the strong current.

Especially if she's not expecting to wake up underwater.

Ino feels a pang of guilt. She's killing an innocent girl. But that's in the plan, anyway. It's necessary. If Shizuka woke up to find a week of her life gone and suddenly under the roof of her fiancé, it would cause suspicion. It would be easier to trace back to Konoha. And that could not be allowed.

Sighing, Ino releases her jutsu.

In the second it takes for her to dislodge her soul from Shizuka, her feet begin to sink into the river. For the briefest instant she can see Shizuka's pretty hair under her, being tossed about by the river. Then Ino's zipping along, the natural bond between her body and her soul directing her and pulling her in faster than any ninja could run.

-

Ino sits up violently in the hospital bed. No one else is in the room.

Figures, she thinks. There was no way anyone would sit around waiting for her to come back. It was as pointless as waiting at the village gates for someone to return from a mission; she'd wake up when she was done, then she get up and report in. Assuming she doesn't die horribly, trapped in another's body.

She detaches the mess of wires and tubes keeping her alive from her body. She'd had basic medical training, so she figures she was qualified enough to do that. The nurses couldn't complain.

Kicking her legs over the side of the bed, Ino stands and makes a break for the door. Her legs wobble; she stumbles and falls on her bottom. Scowling at the hospital gown covering her knees, she tries to will proper control back into her body. Her stomach growls in response. Liquid diets are not particularly satisfying.

"Shut up," she says to it. "You're not Choji."

The door opens and a surprised nurse enters.

"Yamanaka-san!" she cries. "We weren't expecting you back for another couple days."

The nurses bends to help her up, and Ino mutters that he mission had been compromised.

"I'm sorry to hear that," the nurse says, face brimming with sympathy. She's probably seen the effects, both physical and mental, "compromised missions" have had on ninja.

Ino sighs, then smiles as she manages to stand on her own. "Hey, at least I'm alive and well, right?"

"That's always good," the nurse answers lightly, taking up Ino's chart from the end of her bed. "If you could wait here for a bit, I'll get a doctor to perform a few final check ups on you and you can go check out."

"Okay," Ino answers with a false smile. She really wants to get out as soon as possible and go find friends or family. But she's seen the stress the hospital staff goes through when a patient sneaks out prematurely, so she obidiently sits back down on the bed. She doesn't quite trust herself to walk very far yet, anyway.

"Um," she says to the nurse. "Could you bring me some real food too?"

The nurse giggles and promises she will.

-

"I want to go back," Ino announces to Tsunade and her father. Yamanaka Inoichi had been in the building when she'd gone to report in and had rushed up to meet her. Consequently, he'd heard the majority of her mission report. They both raise eyebrows at her.

"You cant exactly go back to being Shizuka," Tsunade answers blandly. "And you're not a surveillance nin. How do you intend to continue?"

Ino straightens her back in determination. "I will be Mokuno Ichiro."

Tsunade and Inoichi exchange glances.

"Ino," says her father, "you haven't trained to be a boy."

"How hard can it be?" she shoots back. "I've possessed boys before."

Inoichi raises his eyebrows as her. "Only for short periods of time."

"So?" Ino is aware males are not in her repertoire of "personalities Ino can act like and not get weird looks," but doesn't want to leave her mission to some other nin.

"Well, aside from the obvious new set of organs to get used to," Tsunade says, drumming her fingers against her desk, "and the different body type to accustom yourself to, you haven't proved you can fit the persona and habits of an average male."

"So I skip a few showers and belch at the dinner table, big deal," Ino glares, placing her hands on her hips. "If I can possess a _bird, _I don't see why–"

"Ino," her father interrupts her sternly. "May I remind you that you had to _prove _you could fly as a bird before you were allowed to do it outside of clan supervision? And that you also had to prove you could handle acting as different women before you were allowed on those missions?"

Ino bites her lip. "Yes, but–"

"I'm not saying you don't have the ability," he father continues. "You're very talented at what you do." Tsunade butts in.

"But you don't do men. Maybe in the future, after you've trained as a male, you can. But not for this mission."

Ino pouts before the hokage and her father like she's thirteen again, being told that no, Sakura could not replace Shikamaru on her team for the chuunin exam.

"I don't want to give this mission up," she says.

Tsunade sighs and leans back in her chair.

"Well, it's not like you completely failed. We can have this Mokuno Ichiro watched. We also know what countries Mochizuki visits, and that he'll be heading for Earth country sometime soon, although it'd still be risky to follow him…" She trails off, lost in thought. It wouldn't go over well with other countries if they caught whiff of Konoha nin outside of Fire, especially if Mochizuki was trading with the other ninja villages. That's why Ino had been sent in as a spy.

Ino follows her father down the steps of Hokage tower sullenly.

"I did offer to train you to be a guy," Inoichi suddenly says, glancing over his shoulder at her.

"Daaad," Ino whines. "I was a _kid_. I wanted to kiss boys, not be them."

He grins at her. "Well, I've got an especially tough case down in interrogation, but once we're done with him I'll find time to help you out. Or maybe you could ask you cousin…"

Ino rolls her eyes as her father babbles on about various men and a few well-trained women she could ask. He sounds just like any normal excited father, not someone who'd been busy for the past two weeks trying to pry information out of some missing nin's brain.

"Oh, but Ino," he says, calling her attention back to him. "You'll need to find a practice body."

She stops dead on a stair landing. "What?"

"Find a guy that won't mind you experimenting on his body," he father says, a playful smirk crossing his face. "I don't suggest fully explaining _what_ you'll be doing with it. Your cousin Yuriko told her boyfriend it was some sex thing."

Ino imagines rounding up all the men she knows. She'd have them all stand before her in a line, pacing back and forth in front of them like an army general.

"Boys," she'd announce, oh-so-official sounding. "I have a special mission for one of you. One of you brave enough to risk everything."

They'd all lean forward eagerly, ready to prove themselves.

"Gentlemen." She'd look each one in the eyes before stepping back and leering impishly at them. "I need a body to practice writing my name in pee!"

Their faces would fall.

In the stairwell of hokage tower, Ino begins to cackle.

* * *

_I imagine that in the bizarre cross between ancient and modern that is the world of Naruto, "legal" is a few years younger than the usual 18. Thus if Ino is a couple years older than "legal age," she is in the 18/19 area._

_PS – This will eventually turn to NaruIno. No yelling at me over it. _


	2. Chapter 2

She doesn't get around to hunting down Shikamaru and Choji until the next day. It's raining, so she finds them in Choji's favorite barbecue place instead of Shikamaru's favorite cloud-watching place.

"Hey guys!" she calls as she picks her way around empty tables. It's early; the restaurant is nearly empty. Choji happily waves back. Shikamaru turns to look at her, but makes no other movement. Lazy ass, she thinks.

She slinks into the booth next to said lazy ass.

"What ever it is," he says to her, "the answer is no."

"I don't have the slightest idea what you're talking about," she answers, smiling winningly. Usually, when graced with such a smile, men turn to putty in her hands. Shikamaru, however, simply turns to stare out the rain-streaked window.

"You have that look in your eyes again," he observes, examining a particular rain drop race down the window, "and I don't want to have anything to do with it."

"You don't even know what it is!" Ino protests.

Choji, sitting across from them and watching the argument with a bemused grin on his round face, laughs. "No, but it's always bad." And with that he calls a waitress over and orders enough food to feed a normal three-man cell for a week.

They eat with out conversing. As Choji stuffs his face, Ino sends small glares over toward Shikamaru. He ignores her and chews slowly.

When both she and Shikamaru are full (and Choji is still plowing through the pile of food between them), she makes an announcement.

"I need one of you to help me."

Shikamaru raises an eyebrow. "I already said no."

"This is completely different," Ino snaps back. This is, of course, a lie.

Shikamaru groans. "If it makes you happy, I'll let you explain it. But my answers is still no."

Ino scowls, then smiles over at her other teammate. "Choji?" she asks hopefully.

"Wha eef eht?" he asks through a mouthful of food.

"I need to practice a mind-transferring jutsu," she says, smiling winningly again. In response, Choji momentarily stops chewing and the two males exchange glances.

"Not in a million years," Shikamaru finally answers.

Choji swallows and asks uneasily, "What exactly do you want from us?"

"Guinea pigs," Shikamaru says before Ino can reply and she kicks him under the table.

"I just need a body to practice with," she clarifies. "I'd just have a couple gos at being you and seeing if I can convince people properly. It's no big deal."

_I don't suggest fully explaining_ what_ you'll be doing with it._

She flashes her winning smile again.

"No," Shikamaru repeats in a deadpan.

Choji wrinkles his forehead in a worried way as he piles more food onto his plate. "Ino, I don't think that's a very good idea," he says. "You'll probably be tempted to do something devious, and then I'd get in trouble."

"You're both babies," Ino whines, but she supposes they have precedent for being worried. When her first boyfriend had broken up with her, she had possessed him while he was meditating in a park, striped off his clothes and run naked through the town. A year later she had sabotaged his attempt to court another girl by possessing various employees at the restaurant they had been eating at and spilling things on her. She had never done anything so malicious to her teammates, but she frequently dropped hints she'd one day get back at them for mistreating her body while her soul was elsewhere.

She doesn't bring it up for the rest of the meal. There are other people she can ask, and if that fails, she knows if she truly worked at pestering them about it, one would eventually give in.

They make plans to start up regular training sessions again tomorrow (Choji has some sort of clan meeting that afternoon, and Shikamaru is supposed to work on something confidential with the cryptography department) and break up to go their own ways. Ino has the rest of the day free after pitching a fit about not wanting to work the flower shop that morning, and so with the rain stopped but the sky still overcast, she wonders about Konoha, debating which boy she should track down to ask about her practice boy.

One of her cousins would probably agree to it. Then again, other male Yamanakas would probably be wary of her, knowing exactly what the purpose of the exercise was for and moreover, being familiar with Ino's personality in general. "Devious" tendencies aside, she's been known to make a public spectacle of herself on more than one occasion, usually yelling at rude or annoying people, and she did not always take whatever body she happened to be using into account.

Her mind turns toward old schoolmates. Shino is definitely out; those bugs freak her out. She might be able to persuade Kiba to agree, but she'd also have to deal with all those annoying dogs…

There is screaming up ahead, and Ino turns a corner to a girl being thrown out of a public bath. She has curly red hair and is dressed in a simple blue sundress. An elderly woman is yelling at her and smacking her bottom with a broom as the redhead stomps out of the building, scowling.

"How many times must I kick you out?!" the elderly woman screams and slams the door shut.

There is a puff of smoke and the girl suddenly becomes a certain orange-clad blond boy.

"WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU DOING?" Ino yells, indignant on behalf of the bathhouse.

Naruto turns and grins sheepishly at her approaching, livid form. "Uh, hey Ino, I know this looks bad, but– WHOA." He barely dodges a punch she had aimed at his nose. Her knee connects with his stomach and he winces backwards.

She crosses her arms and glares at him as he stumbles backward, hunching over his stomach.

"Okay," he mumbles, "I guess I deserved that. But you don't know the full situation!"

She raises and eyebrow at that. "Really? So there's more to using a modified version of your pervert jutsu than just spying on women as they bathe?"

"Well, I mean, no– yes– but–" he sputters. "Konohamaru bet me seven hundred ryo I couldn't sneak in there again!"

Ino groans and lets her arms fall to her sides. "Naruto, you're just a stupid as you were at the academy."

He chuckles at that. "You have no idea how often people tell me that."

"I don't know…" Ino walks around him, sizing him up. He seems to no longer be in pain. His body also seems to be in good condition, with no creepy bugs living in it. "How often do you get caught trying to sneak in to bathhouses?"

Naruto's face falls. "I almost always get caught," he admits. "How can they TELL I'm not a girl? My jutsu is perfect," he whines.

Ino giggles. "There's a lot more to it than sporting boobs and a vagina," she informs him.

He seems surprised. "Really? How do you know?"

She slaps him lightly on the back. "You know I do a lot of spy work."

"Oooh," Naruto seems thoughtful as he gives her an appraising one-over. "So you're pretty much an expert on being other people and stuff?"

She shrugs. "I try."

His eyes light up at her, and she is reminded of the little prankster outcast back at the academy. "Think you could give me some pointers?"

Inwardly, Ino smirks. She puts her hands on her hips and incredulously asks him, "You want me to help you be a better peeping tom?"

Naruto looks dismayed but tries again, "To help me win my money back from Konohamaru."

She narrows her eyes at him, and he responds with puppy dog eyes.

"Pleeease?" He pleads.

"Well…" she pretends to think it over, watching the hopeful look on his face become more and more earnest with every second she lets go by. Some evil part of her brain is crowing.

"Okay," she agrees finally and almost thinks that Naruto is going to hug her. "But you have to swear to do me a certain little favor."

His joy is not in the least affected by her ominous provision. "Sure! Whatever you want!" He hoots.

And just like that, Ino has a practice body. She doesn't tell him that though. Not yet.

He takes a few bouncing steps away from her, then turns on his heel and walks back toward her. "Hey, Ino," his says with a perfectly sincere smile. "Do you want to come spar with us?"

Having nothing better to do, she agrees.

--

There was once a time when Ino had the best taijutsu of any of any kunoichi in her age group. Now she can barely block anything Sakura throws at her.

She tries to ignore the sounds of Naruto and Sai facing off somewhere to the left of them (she has no idea where Kakashi is). Even without chakra behind her fists, Sakura can still punch harder than someone twice her size. Ino can feel bruises forming on her arms where she had been forced over and over to block instead of dodge. Sakura has grown to be quite a petite woman, and at close quarters she has much more freedom to move about than Ino and her longer limbs.

Ino berates herself for letting Sakura get this close in the first place, and tries to widen the gap between them. Sakura follows her relentlessly and, finding a hole in Ino's defense, sends the blonde flying.

_Well, at least now I have some distance,_ Ino thinks as her face connects with the muddy ground. She draws a kunai as she gets back to her feet, using chakra to keep from sliding in the mud too much, and Sakura is on her again as soon as she's completely upright. _And there it goes._

But Ino is more dangerous with a weapon in her hand, and when she makes to match one of Sakura's punches with her blade, the pink haired kunoichi backs away of her own accord.

"You sure are determined to smash up everything you see, forehead girl," Ino teases and throws two shuriken with her free hand. Sakura grins and dodges them easily, but the kunai Ino sends immediately after them grazes her shoulder.

Sakura decides that's she safer relying on hand-to-hand combat, and draws her own kunai and barrels towards Ino again. Not wanting to relive the barrage of fists and kicks, Ino flees into a more heavily foliaged area.

After about ten minutes of cat-and-mouse, Ino manages to catch Sakura in a blast from an exploding tag. Sakura is thrown into a tree with a loud thud but immediately gets back up. Sakura's determination to keep going with everything she tries had doubled since the second time she had Naruto and failed to bring Sasuke back. Ino can't decide if she admires her resilience or pities the emotional turmoil behind her friend's drive for improvement.

Ino is currently hidden in the branches in one of the giant trees Fire Country is famous for, camouflaged with a simple genjutsu. Moisture from the rain earlier seeps into her clothes and hair. She allows herself a moment to mourn for the fizzy mass her hair is bound to become by the end of this before focusing on her opponent again.

Sakura is below, searching for her. Ino can't attack without revealing her position, and she has no intention of going back out and getting her ass handed to her by her friend. But she reasons it's only a matter of time before Sakura finds her– it's her team's training ground, after all, and she should be very familiar with the area. Besides, had she not become a medic-nin, Sakura's natural talents would have been put to work as a sensor type or a genjutsu specialist, so hiding behind an illusion is not exactly secure.

Ino surveys the area, keeping tabs on Sakura as she does so. Since no moves in her normal repertoire seem immediately applicable, she'll have to improvise.

A huge and heavily muscled wild boar has wondered over to a bush near the base of her tree, now that shinobi weren't tearing up the forest anymore. It was sniffing around at the base of the bush, standing fairly still. Ino considers it from her hiding place.

Under normal circumstances, what she is thinking about doing would be completely stupid and very likely to get her killed. But she sees no other option besides fleeing some more or taking another beating from the fist-happy Sakura (who, to her relief, is moving away from her tree), So she settles into a squat on her tree branch and aims her jutsu at the bore.

Her body slumps over on the broad branch and the genjutsu drops as she accustoms herself to the new body. Pigs were the first animal she ever practiced with, something that Sakura and teased her for for months. She'd probably get teased some more after this fight was over.

If Sakura finds her now helpless body, she will lose. But she does not intend to go down without a fight.

Ino takes a few testing steps in the boar's body. She does fight the natural instincts of the animal, and this makes walking with four legs as easy as with two. She shakes her new head and its sharp twin tusks and charges off in Sakura's direction.

She's not exactly stealthy as an animal, and Sakura steps out of the way without turning around, frowning in confusion. Ino charges her again, and Sakura squawks in an undignified way and scuttles away. When Ino goes for her a third time, Sakura turns and runs.

After being chased into the clearing where they had started the spar in the first place, Sakura whirls around, turns and grabs the boar by the tusks. To Sakura's credit, she keeps her promise not to use chakra to enhance her strength, and Ino easily pushes her back several meters. Her feet leave ruts in the mud.

"Ino," Sakura grunts, still with a firm grip on the tusks, "If that's you, I will never let you live this down."

Ino shakes the boar's head violently and sends Sakura soaring through the air. Not without effort, Sakura twists her body around and manages to land on her feet. She cracks her knuckles, panting heavily.

"Don't think a new body will give you an advantage," Sakura warns, and in a glow of green chakra, she begins to heal herself. Wounds close and bruises fade, and so Ino wastes no time in rushing at her again. In a flash, Sakura redirects all the chakra she'd summoned to heal herself to her legs and leaps over Ino, sprinting back into the forest and twice her normal speed.

Inside the head of the boar, Ino tsks. She wonders if she should call that "strength-enhancing" and accuse Sakura of cheating, but winning that way would do nothing for her pride and possessing a boar was already pushing the limits of the spar they'd set out earlier.

So she chases after her. Sakura zigzags around tree, and to her horror Ino realizes she is dangerously close to her body. She tries to catch up to her by enhancing her own speed, but it's difficult to reroute chakra in an animal and she only gets a minimal amount to the boar's legs.

In the exact moment that Sakura spies Ino's body, Ino releases her jutsu. The boar stumbles and trips mid-run and her soul tries to reunite with her body. Sakura is almost up to the branch when Ino snaps open her own eyes. Sakura tackles her, and they both fall to the ground.

Luckily for Ino, her fall is broken by the bush where she had found the boar. Even more luckily for Sakura, her fall is broken by the bush and as well as Ino. Sakura and Ino wrestle in the bush for a while before Sakura manages to put Ino in a hold, and she smirks pleasantly at her victory.

"Well, Ino-pig," she starts in the same manner Ino had used to start her story to Sakura about her first kiss. "You fought bravely, but I– HWARK."

Someone had grabbed Sakura under her arm pits and thrown her to the side. Kakashi smiles down at Ino.

"Ino! Nice to see you. Thanks for standing in for me. I was distracted by a child who asks me to help him find his mommy…" The copy-nin trails off, turning from Ino's stunned face to Sakura's angry fist, which connects with his face. The bunshin disappears with a _poof_.

"Kakashi-sensei!" Sakura screams in frustration at her teacher, whose real body leaning against the tree they had fallen from. She points an accusing finger. "You're LATE!"

Ino pulls herself out of the bush. Her back is now in an incredible amount of pain, and she winces as she shakily stands. She also probably looks like a complete mess.

"So are we going to keep going or what?" She asks.

Kakashi's mask wrinkles in a way that indicates his smile has broadened. "Naruto and Sai have already beaten themselves bloody enough. And anyway," he nods toward her, "you're in no condition to continue."

Ino makes a show of pouting, but she knows it's true. Sakura smiles guiltily at her. "Sorry. I don't know what I was thinking with the whole diving off a tree thing…"

Ino laughs. "Whatever, forehead-girl. You can make it up for me by putting my spine back together."

They meet back up with the boys and Sakura fixes up Ino's back and then turns to Sai's fractured arm. Ino takes it upon herself to examine Naruto. He has several nasty cuts which he explains are from Sai's ink monsters.

Ino whistles. "Damn, you two play hard."

Naruto chuckles and winks at her. "I like it rough."

Ino snorts and is unnecessarily rough with her examination of the deep cuts down his arm.

"Ooow," he complains. "Even Sakura's nice to me when I'm injured."

She responds by placing her hand just over the cut and focusing on healing chakras. She's not as quick or efficient as Sakura, but she can get the job done.

Naruto sobers from his childish whining. "You don't have to bother," he says. "I'll be all healed up in a few hours."

Ino pauses and looks him in the eye. "There's ink in the wound. You're well on your way to an infection." She turns back to healing and before he can protest anymore, she continues, "It's also an excuse to talk to you about this favor I want."

Naruto looks confused for a moment, then brightens up and leans closer to her. "Oh yeah! In exchange for teaching me to be a chick, right?"

She frowns in annoyance with the sudden proximity of his face to hers. He has little regard for personal space, it seems. His breath smells like miso, and she vaguely wonders if he had ramen for lunch.

What is she thinking? He's Naruto; of _course_ he did.

"Yes, in exchange for teaching you how to be a girl," she answers and makes a show of rolling her eyes.

"I thought we could talk about it over dinner!" Naruto exclaims happily. "We always go out for ramen… well, almost always. Sometimes someone insists we have to go somewhere besides Ichiraku, but today we're definitely going for ramen." He wrenches his arm away from her ministrations and pumps the air. "I WANT PORK RAMEN TONIGHT!"

Had they been in public, Ino would have been mortified. Instead, the rest of Team 7 pointedly ignores him and she tries not to laugh.

"Did you get all the ink out?" Naruto asks and pokes and the angry pink lines that his wounds have become.

"Yes, but they'll scar if–"

"I said don't worry about it," Naruto beams and grabs her arm, pulling her to her feet as he stands. He then bounds of to pester the rest of his team to hurry up and come along before Ichiraku gets crowded.

As it turns out, Sakura has hospital duties and Kakashi claims her has a mission brief to attend to, although no one is quite sure if he's making it up or not. And so Ino finds herself sitting between Naruto and Sai and the infamous ramen stand. She is still fostering a shallow sort of crush on Sai's pretty face and finds nothing to complain about, except for perhaps that she's still covered in mud and the walk over did not give her sufficient time to fix her still damp hair.

Naruto, who is even muddier, turns to her as she take her first dainty bite of food and says quite cheerfully, "You've gotten kind of weak, Ino."

She nearly chokes on her noodles and Sai pounds her back helpfully. She turns red at her embarrassment in front of her crush, and she turns lividly on Naruto.

"What the HELL does that mean?" she demands, glaring at him with the force of a half-drunk and wholly angry godaime hokage. Naruto shrivels before her.

"Well, I mean," he stutters, "it's just– you used to be a challenge for Sakura, right? And now she'd totally flatten you in a real fight–"

"What do you mean, 'a real fight'?" Ino demands, glare hardening.

"W–w–well," Naruto's mind flails, and he digs himself in deeper. "I mean– you're still pretty good and all, but there are people out there who are better, and you could be so much stronger–"

Ino grips her wooden chopsticks so hard they start to splinter. "And what if I have other talents than just fighting?" She hisses between gritted teeth.

"What, like ikebana?" Naruto asks blankly.

Sai intervenes before Naruto says something truly stupid (even Sai can sense Ino's rapidly growing rage). "I think what Ino's trying to say is," he reasons, "that she'd never encounter a fight like that in the sorts of missions she takes."

Ino deflates a bit and turns to give Sai a diluted glare, which he doesn't react to. He's more or less right, but it was not phrased in quite the flattering way she would have liked.

Naruto makes an "oooh" sound as if he understands. "So she'd never have to get into a real fight because they don't give missions like that to weak shinobi?"

Later upon reflection Ino will realize there was not a hint of an intent to insult her in anything Naruto had said at dinner. However at the moment all she feels is hurt and anger and so, without a word, she upturns her steaming bowl of ramen over his head and storms off toward her home.

--

Ino is mildly surprised when Naruto shows up in the Yamanaka Flower Shop the next morning. After her fit the previous day, her mother has required her to fit in a few extra hours before she goes off with her team.

"Hey," Naruto greets, dragging his feet and looking all over the shop, not because he's interested but because he's embarrassed.

"Welcome to the Yamanaka Flower Shop. How may I help you?" Ino answers boredly, leaning her cheek against her hand on the counter.

"I came to apologize," Naruto starts, looking her in the eyes and scratching his ear. "Sai's book said I should bring you flowers, but that seemed… pointless…" His eyes wonder back around the shop a bit and then come to rest on her again.

Ino is not one to let people off the hook. "You don't think of me as a serious ninja," she accuses.

"Of course I do!" Naruto protests. "You're always the one who gets people to do things, and you know medical jutsu for when we get ourselves beat up, and you went along to face Hidan and Kakuzu." He smiles at her, looking her dead in the eyes. "You've done a lot, Ino."

For a moment, Ino is stunned because despite her firm belief that Naruto is a total geek, his smile has the ability to make her feel like she's the only one in the room.

Then she remembers she _is_ the only one in the room and in reply she simply rolls her eyes. "I still think you're missing the point a bit," she says. "You're going to have to do me a really big favor now." She smirks impishly then, and Naruto relaxes, realizing he's been forgiven.

"I'm always up for a challenge," he answers. "You're still going to teach me how to sneak into bathhouses?"

Ino walks out from behind the counter and frowns at him. "I wish you wouldn't say it like that," she says. He shrugs in reply.

"Well, that's what it _is_. What favor do you want anyway?"

The corners of Ino's mouth twist upward and her eyes sparkle mischievously. Naruto momentarily finds himself a bit disturbed, but he brushes it off. It's just Ino after all– how bad could it be?

"I just need to practice some jutsu with someone," she says brightly as she begins to remove her green work smock.

"Sure," Naruto agrees. "Hey, I'm getting off easy," he jokes.

The smile of pure evil she send back at him causes the smile to melt from his face.

What follows is an argument over whether he should do her favor first or if she should teach him to be a girl first. It is in the midst of their argument that Shikamaru and Choji find them.

"My work is actually important to the village! You're just a pervert!" Ino bellows, shoving Naruto back. He scowls and brandishes a daffodil back at her (no one is quite sure why he had picked it up at all).

"I don't want to be your punching bag just so you can give me bad advice! How do I know this isn't just some scam to get me to be your slave for a while?"

Shikamaru clears his throat and Choji coughs. They pause and Ino turns to glare at him while Naruto waves happily in greeting. Neither have the grace to be embarrassed about arguing in front of them.

"So did you get Naruto to be your guinea pig?" Choji asks.

"Yeah, I'm going to help Ino with her jutsu," Naruto answers cheerfully and waves his daffodil vaguely at Ino, argument forgotten.

Shikamaru stares at him. "You don't know yet, do you?" he asks. Naruto is confused.

"Know what?"

Ino butts in before her teammates can say anything too incriminating. She's not sure Naruto is actually serious enough about this to let his body be taken over by her.

"We have to get going," she says, grabbing her kunai pouch from behind the counter. She ushers her teammates out the door as Choji begins to say something about mind-transferring. "Naruto," she calls loudly over her shoulder, "I'll track you down tonight for your first lesson."

And all of a sudden Naruto finds himself alone in the flower shop. He wonders if he should get something for Sakura but knows nothing about what she would like. When Mrs. Yamanaka appears in the shop a few seconds later, she demands he pay for the daffodil he'd been brandishing earlier.

* * *

_Hey guys, hope you enjoyed this. It was my first "real" fight scene and we get some NaruIno interaction! Yay! But it's not very friendly yet. Boo! But it will pick up in the next chapter! Yay again!_

_For those of you with time to leave a review– what do you think of my Naruto? For some reason I find him hard to write. D: Also, how was the fight scene? I've heard fights are difficult to write, so I'm suspicious that it came so easily to me, haha._

_Thank you to all who read and reviewed last chapter. Hope you enjoyed this one!_


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